Rising prices and lack of options are pushing London house hunters out of the city into rural communities across the region, the area’s real estate association says.

“People trying to buy in London are now finding two things: That there’s no inventory and that prices have gone beyond what they can afford, so they are pushing out into St. Thomas, Strathroy and into the counties of Elgin and Middlesex,” said Earl Taylor, president of the London St. Thomas Association of Realtors (LSTAR).

Middlesex, for example, had its best August on record with 72 homes sold, association figures show, while St. Thomas, with 68 sales, and Strathroy, with 24, notched their second-best Augusts.

London’s relatively low home prices long have been seen as a key driver of the local real estate boom.

As Toronto-area home prices skyrocketed, many owners there cashed out and bought elsewhere, including in London, where they got a bigger bang — lower prices and, often, more space — for their housing buck.

But that influx of outside buyers has eroded London’s affordability somewhat, with the average resale price of a city home topping $400,000 for the first time this year, making houses in surrounding communities more attractive.

“People were coming to London, driving as far as they could afford and getting a home where they could raise a family . . . for an affordable price, but now it’s also starting to happen in London,” Taylor said.

The average sale price of a home in the London region was up 9.1 per cent last month from August 2018. That put the average London price at $415,000, versus $342,000 in St. Thomas, $363,000 in Elgin County, and $402,000 in Strathroy.

North London remained the city’s priciest district last month, with the average sale price topping $489,000; the lowest average price, $335,000, was posted in east London.

Despite the price increases, last month was the London area’s third-best August for residential sales, with 917 homes changing hands.

That follows record sales in July, with 1,043 homes changing hands, up from 5.4 per cent from the same month a year ago.

Those sales numbers can be attributed to the fact that, despite recent upward trends, the London region remains one of the most affordable major markets in the country, surpassed only by Edmonton and the Windsor-Essex region, Taylor said.

And he expects home prices will continue to rise in 2019, as demand for homes outstrips supply, he said.

“Maybe not at the huge numbers we saw in the past, because we are moving into the fall . . . we are still going to see slight increases for the rest of the year,” he said. “I don’t see a decrease happening at all.”